The Writing Life
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How to convince people that you’re really an author
I know you’ve been down in the trenches for years now, churning out novel after novel, researching agents and publishers, editing until your fingers bleed, but I’ll bet you still have a lot of people in your life that think this is just some fun little hobby. Well fortunately if your real goal is impressing Read more
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The wrong computer
I’m not trying to make excuses. I have dropped the ball on this blog for quite a bit. Although I really did try, there were many factors contributing to my absence here. One is that I just didn’t feel like writing for the sake of it. Another is that I was struggling with some big Read more
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Occupation: Writer?
I remember staring at the blank space on the preschool enrollment form. Mother’s Occupation: ____________. In the past I’d used my old job. Graphic Designer. Then I resigned myself to “Home maker” but it made me feel a little uncomfortable. Not because being a home maker isn’t a real job. Let me tell you, it Read more
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Art to support your art
Writers can be a fickle bunch. We immerse ourselves in our story, falling in love with our characters, daydreaming about our settings. Then we see something shiny in the distance, a new story idea, a really good book, even (gasp) something happening in our own real life and our make believe world can fall away, Read more
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Talent and Time
There’s two things that can make authors cringe to hear. “I wish I was talented so I could write a book.” and “Oh, yeah, I could write a book, if I just had the time.” Please stop. You can write a book, without time or talent. We writers know this because we started out with Read more
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Learning to write short stories to improve your long stories
Writing short stories has always been a challenge for me. My ideas are usually too complicated and require a lot of set up and character development. or so I thought. Recently I’ve realized I am not doing myself any favors by refusing to refine this form of writing. After all, just about all my favorite Read more
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Write your first draft for you and your last draft for your reader
I think I’ve been having an existential crisis. Does that qualify as a good excuse for not posting recently? I’ve been writing much more than average. I polished a final draft. I’m working on a bunch of short stories and really refining my process there. I’ve been catching up on reading. I’ve been brainstorming, outlining, Read more
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Interview with author Gary Buehler
I met Gary in my first critique group. The soft spoken gentleman submitted short stories based on his life and transported our group back to a Philadelphia from the past. When I learned he recently published a collection of his short stories, I was excited to get a copy and interview him for the blog. Read more
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When you have writing momentum DON’T STOP!
You will scrape and toil, pecking out a few horrific words and deleting them for days, weeks, months, years. You will stare at blank pages in utter horror as the words in your mind shrivel, unwritten, into dust. Then one day you still start to write and it will flow. When this happens, my best Read more
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Things you learn when you’re a writer
You might have gone to grad school for creative writing. Or maybe you’ve just joined your first crit group. You might have written twenty eight novels or still be pecking away at your first short story. Regardless of where you are, there are some things that you need to know. I am going to tell Read more
LC W. Allingham 